


Stars

by Lemon (lemon_sprinkles)



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Character Study, Depression, Discussions of Shepard's death, Earthborn (Mass Effect), M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Renegon (Mass Effect), Ruthless (Mass Effect), canon character death, mentions of gay sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 07:33:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5039482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemon_sprinkles/pseuds/Lemon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The stars were Shepard’s salvation. They became his nightmare.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my tumblr account, and now I'm posting it here (hence why it may be familiar to a few of you). Basically, Shepard struggles with the sight of stars after dying on the SR-1

 There was a place Shepard knew of where the smog couldn’t touch the stars.

 He’d climb up the rickety stairs of an abandoned skyscraper that didn’t quite make it, sneak across beams and jump over gaps in the floor, taking the stairs two at a time until he got to the door that led to the roof.

 He couldn’t remember how he’d found it; all he knew was the view.

 Up on that old building in the middle of the shittiest, dirtiest city this side of the Atlantic, Shepard could see the stars. Trillions upon trillions of twinkling lights spread up above with endless darkness behind. Shepard spent his nights sat up on that building, dirty sneakers tucked underneath him and knees pressed in tight, watching the stars with an eager eye, imagination running on overdrive as he thought about what awaited him up there.

 The adventures he’d have and the life he would gain. He wouldn’t be some low life street rat peddling red sand for a bunch of fuck ups. He’d be someone up there. 

 The stars would be his rescue.

 “I’m going to get up there one day,” he told Finch, buzzed from pilfered alcohol and a sense of pride that clouded his judgement, making him feel shit reserved for kids with futures—shit like hope and aspiration and purpose.

 “Yeah fuckin’ right. And I’m going to become the King of London,” Finch said with a grin. Like he thought Shepard was joking; like he knew something Shepard didn’t.

XX

 He felt like he was going to throw up.

 His collar was stiff and his boots felt too tight. Staring down at his feet, he watched the light from his windows as they zipped across the polished leather, breathing steady despite the pressure in his chest.

 “You ever been in a ship before?” a fellow recruit asked. He sounded condescending—like everyone should have been up in a ship at least once in their life.

 They weren’t all trust fund babies.

 “No,” Shepard gritted out. Sitting up straight, he sent the kid—Bradley—a hard stare. “Doesn’t mean I’m not ready.”

Also didn’t mean he wasn’t nervous as fuck.

 The transport vehicle came to an abrupt stop, Shepard leaning hard to the right along with everyone else crammed in the back. Stepping out single file, Shepard peered through the bright glare of the sun to see the SSV Alberta resting at dock, her sleek metal marred by years of wear and tear, but her engine sound and her soul intact.

 “That’s what we’re taking?” Bradly said loudly. “She looks like a piece of junk.”

 She was the most beautiful thing Shepard had ever seen.

XX

 Shepard felt like he couldn’t breathe. Smoke clogged his lungs and the scent of burning flesh and blood made him gag. Dark tunnels twisted and twined around him, the sound of distant screams ringing in his ears. He clutched his gun harder.

 Turning a corner he stumbled over something and caught himself on the wall, palm pressed flat against the cement coated in bits of Batarian. Glancing down to see what he’d tripped on, Shepard caught sight of glassy eyes and Alliance dog tags.

  _‘Private Jennah Talmon, sir. It’s an honour, sir.’_

 Shepard vomited what little he had left in his stomach all over the floor.

 Tripping through the rest of the gloom, he made his way to the exit, crawling over the bodies of the fallen as he did so. Shoving the door open, he stumbled out of the bunker and on to the scorched and torn earth of Torfan. His ears rung and his side screamed out, bloody trickling out from between his armour plates, a stray bullet having grazed his side.

 People were yelling all around him, Makos driving up while soldiers ran about, tending to the wounded and collecting the dead.

 Shepard collapsed a short distance from the door and lay on his back in the mud and gore, staring up at the stars. Everything faded away, and all that remained was the illusion of safety in the galaxy up above.

XX

 Shepard stared down at the galaxy map before him.

 Every star, every system, every planet, was just waiting for them—for the Normandy.

 There wasn’t a place they couldn’t go. No restrictions; no limitations. It was freedom. The purest, truest form of it Shepard could think of.

 He felt like running laps around the deck; he felt like screaming out his joy; he felt like taking the fucking world on. He felt like nothing could bring him down.

 “Where to, sir?” he asked, feet rooted in place and eyes pegged dead ahead on the map, a small smile worming its way on to his lips.

 Captain Anderson just returned the smile and pointed to a tiny cluster right near the Sol system. Shepard swore he stared at those very planets a thousand times before when he was chained and gagged back on Earth.

 “There. That’s where we’ll go first,” Anderson said.

XX

 The stars looked different when you were floating with them.

 Shepard felt very small.

 Insignificant.

 Terrified.

 And then he felt pain.

 Shepard died alone, floating in space, looking out at the stars that had promised him sanctuary.

XX

 So many stars.

 So many fucking stars.

 And behind them? Darkness. Vast, empty nothingness lurking the brilliant, pin head sized dots.

 How long had it taken? How long had it taken for him to die? How long had he drifted as the stars looked on as he struggled to breathe? Struggling to _live_? A minute? Seconds? Hours?

How long did it take for Shepard’s haven to become his tomb?

 “You alright, Commander?”

 Shepard looked away from the windows of the cockpit and stared down at Joker.

 “I’m fine,” he said sharply. Closing his eyes he breathed through his nose. One breath, two breaths, three breaths…

 He was still alive.

 He could see the dots of the stars against his lids and opened them quickly. Joker’s eyes were still on him. He turned around to leave, not wanting whatever it was he was trying to give.

 “Tell me when we’re at Horizon,” he said, shrugging off the feeling of being watched as the stars peered in through the windows.

XX

 “You seem unsettled,” Samara said quietly.

 Shepard shrugged. “I’m fine.”

 She rose from her place on the floor and stood beside Shepard as he stared out the window, watching the vast nothingness with mute fear lodged in his throat.

 He didn’t like looking; didn’t know why he continued to look at it. Maybe it was some bizarre form of mental self-torture; maybe he thought if he looked out long enough he wouldn’t be so afraid; maybe he liked the swell of panic it made him feel because at least it made him _feel_.

 Maybe it was a combination of all three.

 He watched Samara out of the corner of his eye. She watched him much the same.

 Finally, she spoke.

 “You fear the stars,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

 He didn’t say anything.

 “Or you fear what they have come to represent,” she continued.

 Shepard shifted then. He crossed one arm over the other, hugging himself. His right shoulder pulled uncomfortably. Miranda, it seemed, hadn’t brought him back perfectly.

 “You know what death looks like?” he asked.

 “I have taken many lives and seen them labour through their final breaths, but I do not think this is what you mean,” she replied.

 He shook his head. “I’m talking about what _death_ looks like.” He turned to look at her. He watched her face—impassive and cold and striking. “It looks like what’s out there. There’s no sound, no light, no heat. It’s devoid of everything. It’s nothing, Samara. Death is _nothingness_.”

 He turned and left then. He’d avoid sleep some other place.

 Just another fucking thing death ruined for him.

XX

  “You have a skylight?”

 Shepard looked up from his report to see Liara stood in the middle of the room, hands linked behind her back as she stared up at the ceiling.

 “It’s never opened,” he said, looking back down at his datapad. The rare times he slept in his bed he kept it closed.

 Liara hummed and turned around. Approaching his desk, she rested her hip against the side and picked up one of his reports, playing with the edges idly. She’d come to visit the Normandy—a break from the lair she had voluntarily secluded herself in. She’d asked that the next time Shepard was in the area, she visit him rather than the other way round.

 He’d gone out of his way to visit her this time. He lived his life trapped in a prison, surrounded by the thing that made him feel like he was suffocating all alone.

 He didn’t want Liara to suffer the same fate.

 “When I was a child, I’d stare up at the stars and imagine all the places the Protheans would have visited. I couldn’t wait to explore their ruins and learn about their culture. I wanted so desperately to follow in their footsteps,” she said, fondness in her voice. “There is something romantic about the stars. Wouldn’t you agree?”

 Shepard cleared his throat and put his datapad back down. “Maybe when you’re a kid. The reality is different. War, politics, petty squabbles, and a bunch of fucked up people just like us, desperate for whatever will make life that little bit easier to deal with.”

 Liara’s lips twisted. Shepard wasn’t sure if she was amused or annoyed. He could never tell with her. Usually it was a combination of both. “You’ve never been much of a romantic, have you, Shepard?”

 He shrugged. “I used to be.”

 She looked surprised. “You? A romantic? I’d have never have thought.” She reached out and touched his shoulder gently, a friendly, comforting gesture that grounded Shepard more than she’d ever know. “What happened to that hidden romantic?”

 He shrugged again, accidentally upending her touch. She withdrew her hand, and Shepard regretted the motion immediately.

 “I grew up I guess,” he finally said. 

 And died amongst his hopes and dreams.

XX

 Shepard ran his hands along sweat slick skin, fingertips dancing across the bumps and dips of Kaidan’s spine. Pressing his face against the side of Kaidan’s neck, Shepard breathed in deep, legs spreading to pull him in deeper.

 Kaidan kept at the lazy, sensual pace, each thrust long and drawn out, a newness to the unhurriedness of it all. Soft gasps wormed their way in Shepard’s chest, Kaidan’s lips close to his ear, the brush of stubble tickling him.

 Shepard concentrated on Kaidan’s movements; lost himself in his warmth and strength. Let him push him deep into the mattress as they found peace in the middle of war.

 But then he looked up at the skylight.

 Kaidan had asked to open it. Shepard didn’t tell him why he kept it closed. He didn’t think it an issue. Didn’t think…

 He just didn’t think. Not when it came to Kaidan.

 He tried to look away but couldn’t, attention focusing on the stars above and the emptiness behind. Nothing. There was fucking nothing. Nothing but his own laboured breathing and the knowledge that this was it—he was dying. Dying, all alone in space, away from everyone and everything, free falling along with the wreckage of the Normandy, her moans and creaks ringing in his head along with his own laboured breathing until—

 It was done. All over. Nothingness had consumed him as the stars looked on, and he was—

 “John?”

 Kaidan’s worried face blocked the sight of the stars, and Shepard let out a deep breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding.

 “Shit,” he said, and noticed his breathing was shakier than before.

 Kaidan tried to pull out but Shepard kept him in close, desperate for him to be _there_ ; to just be _present_. To remind him he was in his bed, alive and loved and fucking his troubles away, and not dying all fucking alone with no one there to tell him it was all going to be o-fucking-kay.

 “Are you okay?” Kaidan asked. He reached up and petted Shepard’s cheek, calloused fingers gently soothing away the worry lines that marred his handsome features.

 Shepard couldn’t answer; didn’t know how to properly articulate his feelings. He’d never been very good at it before he died, and had become even worse at it since. He wanted to tell Kaidan about it all—wanted to tell him how terrified he was of the black, empty, nothingness of space, and how anytime he closed his eyes to sleep, or looked out the window of the Normandy, he felt like he was dying all over again.

 He wanted to tell him how the thing that made him the happiest—the thing that had been his freedom-- had become his waking nightmare he was trapped inside.

 But he couldn’t.

 Instead he pulled Kaidan in for a hard kiss as he rocked down, trying to get him to move again. “I just need you,” he said when they broke apart, breath mingling together as their hearts beat in unison.

He just needed to feel _alive_.

XX

 Up above the rubble of London…

 Up above the smoke…

 Up above the cruisers and fighters, vessels and frigates…

 Up above the Reapers…

 Shepard could see the stars.

 He knew what awaited him when he died, and he was going to make sure he dragged the fucking Reapers into that black abyss along with him.

XX

 He couldn’t feel anything.

 Couldn’t see anything.

 He wasn’t sure where he was. Purgatory? Hell?

 This wasn’t what he remembered when he’d died the first time. Wasn’t sure if he really was dead this time, either.

 At least, he didn’t think this was what he remembered. He couldn’t be sure.

 There had been a run for a beam… the death of a loved one… and then… then a choice. He had made… a choice.

And then…

 He couldn’t remember.

 He just rested in the darkness. Seconds, minutes, hours, maybe even days passed, and Shepard rested.

Then he saw it.

 It was a light. A single, white light, hovering far off in the distance. A single pin head sized dot.

 A star.

 It was a star.

 The last thing Shepard remembered was the star drawing closer, and the sense of peace it brought once more as he was bathed in its glow.

**Author's Note:**

> Ambiguously vague ending. Either Shepard has passed on and is seeing that famous 'white light', or he's lying in the rubble of the Citadel and he's viewing a flashlight coming toward him. The choice is yours!


End file.
